2'«» S. Yli Mat 28. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



437 



tinction to spurious, adopted, and supposititious. In the 

 Spiritual Courts the word is still used in its ancient sense, 

 in conjunction with the word ' lawful : ' as in a grant of 

 administration to A., 'natural and lawful son' of B. the 

 intestate." We hope, however, that our readers will 

 pardon us for having noticed at all in our pages this 

 dastard production of William Cobbett — a production 

 only remarkable for its palpable falsehoods and its ma- 

 lignant abuse. And no doubt man}*, like ourselves, are 

 curious to know by what mysterious influence this pug- 

 nacious oracle of radicalism became all at once the cham- 

 pion of Romanism, and the lampooner of the Reformers. 

 The secret history of Cobbett's History would form a 

 curious chapter.] 



Hebrew Old Testament and the Septuagint. — In 

 the Preface to a volume entitled An Enquiry into 

 the present State of the Septuagint Version of the 

 Old Testament^ by Dr. Henry Owen, rector of St. 

 Olave, Hart Street, and F.K.S., 1769, is the fol- 

 lowing (p. iii.) : — 



" Nor can I think that an^'thing farther needs be 

 added to convince the more candid and ingenuous of all 

 parties, that I have done no injustice to the character of 

 the Jews in charging them with having wilfully cor- 

 rupted their Scriptures," &c. 



Also, Bishop Lowth's Prelimina?-y Dissertations 

 to Isaiah (p. 75., 8vo. edit., Glasgow, 1822) : — 



"... A prejudice even more unreasonable than the 

 former, is the notion that has prevailed of the great care 

 and skill of the Jews in preserving the text, and trans- 

 mitting it down to the present times pure.", 



Can any of your readers inform me where I can 

 obtain any information on the subject of the un- 

 faithfulness of the Jewish nation to their trust ? 



Newingtoniensis. 



[1. With regard to our correspondent's inquirj', as it 

 ailects the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, we would 

 refer him to Home's Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, 

 edit. 1856, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45., particularly to the follow- 

 ing remarks : " Little alteration has been made in it [the 

 Hebrew text] since settled by the Masoretes; and the 

 earliest Targums show that about the time of Christ it 

 was essentially what it afterwards appeared in the Ma- 

 soretic period. When we tvy to go up further to the 

 time when the canon was completed, and onward to the 

 return of the Jews from exile, in search of what the pri- 

 mitive text then was, wc cannot conceive of it as differing 

 much from its present condition. Tire Jews, after the 

 exile, were very careful in preserving it. They guarded it 

 against corruption with watchful jealousy: Everything 

 conspires to siiow that we have the original now in a cor- 

 rect state. The genuine text has been handed down with 

 purity." — 2. With respect to the Septuagint, if the 

 learned Dr. Owen intended to charge the Jews with ivil- 

 ful corruption of their Scripture's in that version, he must 

 have seen good reasons for changing his opinion after- 

 wards, for in a subsequent work he writes thus : — " There 

 is no room to doubt, but the LXX. interpreters followed 

 closely the reading of their copies; and translated as 

 faithfully as their knowledge of the Hebrew language 

 enabled them to do." (Brief Account, 1787, p. 20.) No one 

 pretends that the LXX. version faithfully represents the 

 Hebrew Bible ; but if, with many blunders, it does occa- 

 sionally bear tokens of icilfuUy falsifying the text, it 

 strikes us that the falsifications are not always such as a 

 Jeiu would be likely to make. This, however, is a sub- 

 ject not quite congruous to the pages of "N. & Q."] 



" Bowdled'^ — Can you oblige me with an ex- 

 planation of the word boivdled, in the following 

 passage from Holinshed ? — 



" If a man be weasel-beaked, then much hair left on 

 the cheeks will make the owner look big like a bowdled 

 hen, and so grim as a goose." 



A Student of our Older Literature. 



{^Bowdled means swelled out, ruiHed with rage. Jamie- 

 son has, " To BoLDiN, Boldyn, to swell " : — 

 " For joy the birdis, with boulden throats, 

 Agains his visage shein : 

 Takes up their Idndlie musike.nots 

 In woods and gardins grein." 



Hume, Chron. S. P., iii. 386.] 



Sir William Alexander, 8fc. — Can you tell me 

 who the "Sir "Wm. Alexander" was, on whom 

 Drummond of Hawthornden wrote his Pastorall 

 Elegy ? It could not have been the " Monar- 

 chic" Earl of Stirling ; unless, indeed, Drummond 

 was determined to give him a Roland for his Oli- 

 ver in return for the Alexander verses " On the 

 reputed Death of the Author," prefixed to Drum- 

 mond's Works (1711). I fancy that there must 

 have been another William Alexander, extant in 

 those days ; certainly a " Walter," about which I 

 should like to know more. G. H. K. 



[The edition of 1656 of William Drummond's poem is 

 erroneously printed as " A Pastorall Elegie on the Death 

 of Sir W[iiliam] A[lexander]," whereas the correct 

 reading is " To the Exequies of the Ilonovrable S"' An- 

 tonj'B Alexander, Knight, &c. A Pastorall Elegie. 

 Edinbvrgh, Printed in King James his College, by George 

 Anderson, 1638." Sir Anthony Alexander was the second 

 son of the Earl of Stirling, and Master of the King's 

 works in Scotland: ob. August, 1637.] 



Lists o/i»/.P.V — Where shall I find a list of 

 the members of the House of Commons from an 

 early period, say the accession of Henry VIII. to 

 the present time, arranged either in parliaments 

 or under counties and boroughs ? K. P. D. E. 



[A list of the members of the House of Commons 

 from 33 Henry VIIL, 1542, to 12 Charles II., 1660, ar- 

 ranged in parliaments, is printed in Willis's Notitia Par- 

 liamentaria, vol. iii. pt. ii. In the Postscript, Mr. Willis 

 says, "There having been so many lists of the Parlia- 

 ments between 1660 and the present year [1750], pub- 

 lished either in separate sheets or in books, particularly 

 in The Present State of England [by Chamberlayne], 

 renders it needless to carry the account lower than 

 1660." Beatson's Chronologic'cd Begister, 3 vols. 8vo. gives 

 -the members of both Houses froni 1708 to 1807. From 

 which period the information must be worked out from 

 the Boijal KaJendars, and the well-known publications of 

 the late Mr. Dod.] 



Witchcraft. — Among the modes of incantation 

 and magic forbidden by Archbishop Theodore, 

 are the following : " Angelos nominare et congre- 

 gationes facere," and " facere ligaturas." Can any 

 of your readers tell me what these ceremonies 

 were? T. H. R. 



[Of the three practices here specified, we find the two 

 former prohibited by the Council of Laodicea, cap. 36. 



